


Toby

by JBankai89



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Child Death, Ghosts, Haunting, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8221211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBankai89/pseuds/JBankai89
Summary: “The very next night, I heard the tapping again, and the creaking. And I swore—I swore that I heard a child's voice speak.”“What did the voice say?” The man asked as he leaned forward in his chair.“It said, 'I don't want to go to sleep.',”Check out the Toby Audio Drama on YouTube by FanficRadio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga2MpfWf_ZU





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: 'Tis the season to experiment with Horror story ideas, for the howlidays I thought I'd try my hand at something spooky.

Toby

 

“Please state your name for the record.”

“Lily Evans-Potter.”

Lily Evans-Potter was a beautiful redhead with vibrant green eyes. Her beauty was dulled somewhat by the hollow look in her eyes and the deadened tone of her voice. The man interviewing her eased back in his seat, the digital recorder resting between them, and he took a moment to look over his list of questions.

“Can you tell us when you first began to suspect that there was something...amiss with your son, Henry, was it?” The man asked, and the woman flinched at the mention of her son.

“Harry. His name was Harry,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I think I realized that something might've been off three years ago. Harry was seven, and my husband and I—James—had moved from London to this old house in Godric's Hollow. It was a nice, Victorian house in a small village. We thought it would be the perfect place to raise our son, away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.

“The first night there, I felt like something was off, but I chalked it up to nerves at being in a new environment. Most of our things were either still in boxes or still on their way from London, so the house didn't feel like ours yet. Harry was off exploring the house, I could hear his little pitter-patter of feet as he explored and played. It all felt so normal.

“When we all went to bed, I could hear giggling—a child's laugh. I thought Harry might still be awake, but I went to check on him and he was fast asleep in his new room. I assumed that my ears were playing tricks on me, it was the wind...I don't know. I went back to bed and I tried to ignore the sounds I heard.”

“What did you hear?” The man asked in the same calm, even tone he'd spoken with her throughout the interview.

“Tapping. On the windows, three taps in quick succession, like, _tap-tap-tap_ , one after the other. I assumed it was the wind brushing a tree branch into our bedroom window, but...but there's no tree there. I didn't know what to make of it. And...creaking. Like the house was settling. I didn't get any sleep that night, and James brushed off the sounds I'd heard as being uneasy in a new house. He went to work that next morning and left me alone with my son.”

“But you don't think it was simply that...the unease of being in a new home?”

“No. It couldn't have been just me. I was downstairs unpacking the kitchen boxes, and Harry was in the front room playing with a few hand-me-down toys I'd kept for him from my childhood. I could hear him talking to someone, and that same laugh I'd heard the night before. It was there. I turned around when I heard it, but then...”

“What happened next, Mrs Potter?” The man's question was followed by Lily bringing a hand to her mouth as she stifled a sob.

“Oh, I turned back just in time to see the stack of plates I had just put away fly off the shelf—literally. It shot a foot away from the cabinet, and they all crashed to the floor. I heard Harry scream and come running, and he started apologizing to me. 'I'm sorry mummy, I'm sorry, he didn't mean it,' he said.”

“What did your son mean by that, who was 'he'?”

“H-he said it was his friend, Toby. He said his friend got upset when Harry told him he was to return to primary school as soon as we were settled, and his...whatever it was, _friend_ didn't want Harry to leave him.” Tears streaked Lily's cheeks as she spoke, and she accepted the handkerchief the man offered her with a soft hiccough.

“How do you know it wasn't just your son's imagination running wild? Kids invent imaginary friends all the time, this isn't something new.”

“It just seemed like something more. I can't explain it. The dishes—Harry's reaction. It just seemed too coincidental to me just an imaginary friend or a wild fluke. Later after I'd cleaned up, Harry came to me when I was on the sofa having a lie-down with one of my favourite books, he climbed into my lap and started asking me if he was in trouble. He seemed so distraught, and the...the occurrence with the dishes, he seemed convinced that it was his fault. I asked him why he'd think that, and he said that his friend, Toby, blamed him for the broken dishes because it was Harry's fault that he got angry.

“You must understand, Harry was an independent child. He was very self-reliant, and he always wanted to be treated like a big boy, and he hero-worshipped my husband. The last time he crawled into my lap like that was maybe when he was three or four. It was very out of character for him.'

“And what did your husband have to say about the incident with the dishes?”

“He didn't believe me. He said the cabinet was uneven and the plates slid out. He brushed off Harry's _friend_ as nothing more than a typical kid's imaginary friend.”

“What happened next?”

“The very next night, I heard the tapping again, and the creaking. And I swore—I _swore_ that I heard a child's voice speak.”

“What did the voice say?” The man asked as he leaned forward in his chair.

“It said, ' _I don't want to go to sleep_.',” Lily's voice broke and she dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief she still held. “I—I couldn't sleep after that.”

“Can you tell me about Harry's imaginary friend?”

“I didn't know much at the time. I always heard Harry chattering away with him, running and playing in the halls and the back garden and it all seemed so _normal_. I started to get used to the sounds at night, and I was finally able to get some sleep.  
“The strange thing is neighbours and guests always talked about my _children_. I had one child. One. But when I corrected them they told me that they heard two children's voices, two sets of feet running and playing...not one. My husband didn't believe them, and brushed it off like he always did.”

“Can you tell me when things began to escalate?”

“We had been in Godric's Hollow for a month, it was October, and all our furniture had arrived, we were unpacked, and we finally felt like it was our home. I had a lot of framed photographs around, mostly of James's family and my parents—my sister and I don't get on—and of course dozens of photographs of Harry through the years. The funny thing was, photographs started falling off the walls and fireplace mantle, but _only_ photographs of Harry. The glass would shatter, like it had been dropped from the roof onto concrete instead of the two or three feet from its place to the carpeted floor. My husband guessed that maybe the frames were too old, or the nails sunk into the drywall...he just brushed it off like he always did.

“It was time for Harry to return to primary school, and I was looking for work. Harry was distraught about leaving his friend, and I told Harry to just bring his friend with him to school, and Harry said he couldn't. Harry had never been one to kick up a fuss about going to school, but he was beside himself the whole walk there. I was quite embarrassed, dragging my child, kicked and screaming all the way to the front gates. I felt like a horrible mother.

“When I returned home, I took out my laptop and resumed my job hunt, and I'd been at it for maybe ten minutes when I heard a child's giggle. I stood up, and I heard the soft sound of someone running down the hall towards the bedrooms. I went to see what it was, but I couldn't find anything. When I returned to the front room...” Lily broke off with a choked sob.

“What happened, Mrs Potter?”

“All our photographs... _all_ of them. They were on the walls like...like normal? But our faces, mine, James's, every family member had been scratched out...except Harry. When—when James got home he thought I'd done it, and I told him I hadn't and he didn't believe me. We had a horrible row and we _never_ fight. I was just glad that Harry was still at school and h-he didn't hear it.” Lily choked and broke off her narrative as she buried her face in her hands.

“Mrs Potter,” the man said after a moment, and she looked up at him, tear tracks staining her cheeks, “Tell me what happened next.”

“That night we went to bed, and Harry asked us where the pictures went...I can't remember what we told him, that they were being cleaned or something like that...and all was quiet then I heard tapping on my window.”

“The same kind of tapping that you heard the first night?”

“No, it was different. This was harder, and sounded like someone knocking on my window. Three times. Just like before. It woke me up and I rushed to the window, but there was nothing there. I took out my mobile and snapped a picture of the window. I don't know why, I just...had to. But I couldn't look at it, I just went back to bed and tried to get some sleep.

“Did you ever look at the photograph that you took?”

  
“Yes, the next morning James insisted on taking Harry to school, and he kept giving me this _look_ , like something wasn't quite right with me. I think he thought I was losing my mind or something. But...after they left, I pulled out my mobile and I remembered that I had snapped a photo and...it was there.”

“What was there, Mrs Potter?”

“A figure. Sort of...shapeless, like black fog. But I could see the streetlamp's glow beyond the figure, like a silhouette. But there was _no way_ someone could be standing in front of our window. It's on the second floor, and there is _nothing_ they could have hung on to. I was terrified of being in the house alone, and so I took my laptop and took our other car and drove to the café in the village and I spent the day there.

“Were you job-searching all day?” The man asked, leaning forward slightly as he spoke.

“No, I was looking for someone who could help me, someone who would believe me. I was afraid that I might lose my family. Whatever was in that house...it was evil. There was no other word for it. Evil.

“That evening after Harry had been put to bed I told James that I wanted to have a Psychic come and see the house. My husband was a practical man. He didn't believe in such things so of course he got very upset, told me he wouldn't waste his money on something like that and he insisted that I see a therapist. He was concerned that being alone so much was making me delusional.”

“Did the therapist help at all?”

“No, how could they? A therapist doesn't cure a haunting. But I went to keep James from nagging me, he was getting worried about leaving me alone with Harry, and threatened to take him to his parents' house when he wasn't there, and I—he's my son, I'd never hurt him. I loved him. I went to the therapist on the condition that we have a psychic come see the house. He finally agreed.”

“How did you find a psychic that was reputable? I'd imagine many of them are frauds.”

“Many are. I found this one who came highly recommended, she worked with several New Age shops across southern England, hosting workshops on Divination and the like...Sybill Trelawney.”

“Did Miss Trelawney help at all, ease your fears?”

“James was very reluctant to have Harry around someone who claimed to be a psychic, so we had her by while Harry was at school. She said that there was indeed a spirit in the house, she said it was a child...but so much isolation had made it malevolent. It wanted a playmate, it wanted Harry.” Lily's voice shook and died, and it took several minutes before she was calm enough to continue. “S-she said nothing would be a permanent solution unless we discovered who the spirit was, and what it was attached to, what was holding it to this plane of existence. She burned some herbs and nailed sprigs of rosemary above all the doorways. After she left, James ripped it all down before I could say a word, and complained about it being a waste of money, and told me I wasn't to call on her again.”

“And did any of what Miss Trelawney do help at all?”

“No. If anything, things got worse. That night Harry kept asking me if I was all right, and when I tried to talk to Harry James would cut me off, like he was afraid I'd _infect_ our son with my fears or something. After we went to bed I was woken up around two or three in the morning. At first, I didn't know what had woken me, but then I heard it—a child's laugh, then something ran across the bed, over my legs, and down the hall. It felt like a cat...but we didn't have a cat.”

“Are you sure you didn't imagine it? Perhaps you were still dreaming?”

“ _No_ ,” Lily said forcefully, her eyes still rather red, “it _happened_. I'm _not_ crazy.”

“I never said that you were crazy Mrs Potter,” the man said patiently, “please, tell me what happened next.”

“I couldn't get back to sleep after that, and I was just watching the hallway, trying to convince myself that maybe some sort of animal got in the house when I heard Harry talking to someone.”

“Who was he talking to?”

“I don't know. I get up and walked to his bedroom and I could hear laughter on the other side of the door, like Harry had a friend over. I tapped on the door and opened it, and saw Harry sitting up in bed, and I asked him what he was still doing up, and he said, 'sorry Mummy, Toby woke me up.'. I asked him if he could tell Toby that you need to go back to sleep because you have school in the morning, but Harry frowned at me, and said, 'Toby gets mad when I tell him that. He does bad things when he's mad.' I asked him what sort of bad things, and he climbed out of bed...he looked so little in his Power Rangers pyjamas...and he took down one of his superhero posters to show me what was behind it.”

“What was behind it, Mrs Potter?”

“Claw marks. Three claw marks gouged into the wallpaper. Like...a cougar or something. I asked Harry why Toby would do such a thing, and he said, 'Toby doesn't like it when I leave. He gets mad.'. I asked Harry if Toby had done anything else, and he nodded. When I asked him what he'd done, he pulled his pyjama top off and there were three identical scratch marks on his collarbone. I was horrified.

“I woke James up and showed him the claw marks on the wall and on Harry, and James exploded. He accused _me_ of doing those things to our son, and he wasn't going to let me abuse him any more. He packed up an overnight bag, took Harry, and left.”

“That must have been fairly traumatic for you,” the man said, and Lily nodded without looking up.

“I don't understand why James would be so cruel,” she said softly, “a-after he left things became much worse. The house creaked worse than ever, lights flickered, and instead of the giggling childlike voices, I heard angry screams—like a child pitching a fit. I sat up in Harry's room all night, I couldn't leave. Whatever it was blamed me for making Harry leave, and it scratched me like it did Harry. I didn't know what to do. I missed my son and husband, but I didn't want to lie about what I had been seeing and experiencing either.

“The next day, James refused to answer my calls and texts, and I walked around the house taking photographs of virtually everything—everywhere there had been a disturbance.”

“Did you see anything in your photographs?”

“Yes. Apparitions, orbs of light, dark shadows. Everything I'd ever seen those paranormal experts talk about on telly. The strange thing is...I recognized the apparitions.”

“You...recognized it?”

“Yes. It was a little boy. A little boy I hadn't seen in nearly fifteen years.”

“Who was it?”

“My childhood friend, Severus. Severus _Tobias_ Snape.”

“Toby.”

“Yes, I believe so. He was killed by a drunk driver when we were eight, and I was distraught. He was my best friend. His mother let me take a few of his toys as mementos, which I kept, and gave to Harry.”

“If you truly believe this was a genuine haunting, why did the spirit of your childhood friend appear only now, why not before?”

“I don't know. I asked the Psychic—Sybill and she said great upheaval, like a move, can sometimes jar awake spirits like that. Harry only started talking about this imaginary friend after we'd moved, so it seemed the most likely answer.

“A few days later, James came back with two things for me. My son...and divorce papers. He wanted sole custody, he was afraid that I would endanger Harry, but I was granted weekend visits. Harry was very upset. He didn't understand what was happening, and he cried a lot and asked me why his father had taken him away from me and from his friend. I tried to explain that his daddy was just scared for him, but it didn't help very much, and when it was time to go, Harry completely lost it. Screaming at his father, crying harder than I'd ever seen him, and he managed to break away from his father's grip to run to me. 'I don't want to go Mummy, please don't make me go,' he said. 'I want to stay here with you and Toby.'. The mention of his imaginary friend was the last straw for James, and he dragged Harry bodily from the house.”

“I can imagine that must have been very upsetting for you,” the man said, and Lily nodded sadly.

“This spirit...ghost...whatever it was destroyed my family in a few short months,” Lily sobbed, “I hated it. I hated that James wouldn't believe me, I hated that it attacked me and my son, I hated it all. I didn't leave the house for the whole week, and Toby was angry that James had taken Harry from him, and took it out on me. He broke dishes, cracked mirrors, light bulbs would explode at random, any new photographs of our family that had been put up had every face save Harry's burned away, not just scratched anymore. He wanted my son back.”

“Tell me about the incident that led you here,” the man said, and Lily let out a choked sob and the prompt.

“It was my first weekend with Harry. Harry was thrilled to be home, and we played outside, and ate all of his favourite foods, and everything was perfect. That night though, Harry crawled into my bed, his face tear-stained, and he said that Toby wanted him to be his friend forever, and that he was scared. I didn't know what Harry meant, so I held him until we both went to sleep.

“The next day, Sunday, Harry thanked me, and I asked for what, and he said 'Thank you for helping me be brave Mummy. I love you.' And then he hugged me and toddled off to his room.

“At first, I assumed he'd gone to play by himself, because I could hear his little voice talking to someone in his room, laughing, running around. The normal things children do. Then while I was catching up on my reading I noticed that it was quiet—too quiet.” Lily broke off with a sob, and buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, I got so, so scared, I jumped up and rushed to Harry's room. And he was there...on the floor. His lips were blue and there was bruising around his throat, like someone had strangled him. I called James in a panic, and an ambulance, but it was too late. Our son was gone. Toby took my little boy from me. James thought I'd done it, and no matter how many times I denied it, he wouldn't listen to me. And now...I'm here.” Lily finished, dabbing her eyes with the handkerchief.

“Thank you for sharing your story with me, Mrs Potter,” the man said, leaning forward to flick off the recorder and pocket it as he stood up, and she nodded weakly. Before he moved away, she reached out and covered his hand with her own.

“Please make sure you get it out there. People _need_ to know how dangerous these things are. _Please_.”

“Of course Mrs Potter, I will. I promise,” the man said, his voice shaking a little in alarm at the intensity in her gaze.

There was a soft knock on the door, and two orderlies stepped into the room. “C'mon Lily,” one of them said gently as they gently rested a hand on her arm, “Time to go back to your room. I'm sure you're tired, and would like a rest.”

“Yes,” she said at once, standing slowly and smiling placidly at the two men, “A—a rest sounds nice.” She turned back to the man, and smiled at him. “Thank you for listening to me, you're the first person who ever has.”

The man smiled at her as they guided Lily from the room, and the man watched her go. He stepped outside the room where a dark-haired, dark skinned man and a tall white man stood, waiting for him.

“What do you make of it, Mr Palmer?” The dark-haired man asked, his arms crossed.

“Well, your ex-wife genuinely believes in what she's telling us. She is convinced that a ghost killed your son,” Mr Palmer said, avoiding the incredulous look in the man's eyes.

“Three years of intensive therapy, and she's _still_ stuck in her delusions?” He snapped, his voice shaking and very close to a yell. The man frowned at him.

“Mr Potter, such deeply ingrained schizophrenia means that her delusions run deep, deeper than her common sense. It will take years for her to break free of them, but only _if_ she wants to. She still cannot cope with the knowledge that she killed your only son. She created these vivid delusions to help her deal with her guilt and her grief. It will take time. This recording,” he patted his pocket, “ will at least save your wife from being sent to prison, so she can stay here in hospital.”

“In a locked ward for the criminally insane,” Mr Potter muttered, arms crossed.

“Yes, I'm afraid so.”

 

 

~*~

Lily lay down in her cot. It was white. She rolled onto her side, smiling vacantly, feeling the Seroquel already beginning its work, and making her drowsy. Her boys were standing before her.

“My boys...” she whispered, reaching towards them with a quivering hand.

“Mummy, we don't like it when you leave,” Harry said, and Lily felt her heart break at the words.

“I'm sorry sweetie, I didn't mean to leave, I didn't mean to. There was a man here to see me about what happened to you. They still think I killed you.”

“I don't want you to leave me again,” Harry said sadly, “please, stay with me and Toby...forever.”

“I can make it so it won't hurt,” Toby said gently, his cold fingers brushing Lily's hair like a cool autumn breeze. “Then you can be our mummy forever.”

“Forever,” Lily breathed. Harry and Toby lifted her pillow from under her and pressed it over her face.

 

End


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